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Donna Balzer is a garden expert, a regular guest on CBC radio and host is internationally aired "Bugs & Blooms" on HGTV. For more great tips from Donna, visit www.donnabalzer.com. You can also read Donna’s gardening books: No Guff Vegetable Gardening with Steven Biggs and keep track of your success with her Gardener’s Gratitude Journal: Part Diary, Part Personal Growing Guide.
Greenhouse tomato growers are rightfully confused when they see so many kinds of greenhouse tomatoes for sale. Karen Olivier, an independent tomato breeder from the Secret Seed Cartel, estimates there are 20,000 kinds of tomatoes listed right now and she is adding to that number by breeding new tomatoes every year.
A few years back my greenhouse tomato leaves were purple, yellow and spotted. Not all at once, but over time and on different leaves. It was the second year I was growing in my greenhouse and the commercial potting soil I bought was low on phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium. The leaves on the plants were telling me what was going on. And it didn’t look good.
When I started growing in my Greenhouse Garden a few of my favourite plants stopped working for me. That's what I learned to read the catalog fine print and adapt my shopping for a better hobby greenhouse growing.
Some gardeners wait for the sun to gently warm the soil before they start their garden. Others are impatient.
A new crop, discovered in a seed catalogue last year, piqued my growing interest. I grow lots of vegetables but growing Sesame seeds didn’t occur to me until I saw them listed. I'm excited to try something new I ordered it right away.
My potluck arugula salad is sprinkled with jewel-toned tropical pomegranate seeds. My neighbour Barbara is excited and quickly tells me how much she loves the bitter taste of arugula. So I tell her I grow arugula as a winter crop and now she is all ears.
If you are new to growing and subscribe to the "just add water" school of thought, then this is going to come as a shock to you. With terms like super soil, triple mix, natural soil and soil with no soil, it is certainly confusing for new gardeners to start growing in their greenhouse! How do you know what to use for successful, continuous growth? How do you get the best flavor in your food and the brightest colour in your flowers?
It’s 7 AM and I’m having coffee in my cozy rocking chair waiting for the sun to come up so I can walk the dogs.
Essentially there are two ways to grow in soil in your greenhouse. You can grow in pots or you can grow in planting beds. We look now at growing in posts, and we will consider the positives and negatives growing directly in the ground.
Imagine my surprise when a small hole we drilled through our greenhouse foundation became a runway for mice. We pulled an extension cord into my greenhouse through that hole and the tiny gap became a neon sign for rodents.
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